Help with Wal-mart printing service

I used Wal-mart a few years back to print my pic when I used my old D30 and PS 5 actions to process my raw files. They would come back pretty good.

Yesterday I took some files from my 20D and results were horrible...very dark in the shadows. In my current work flow I use C1 to adjust and balance levels and exposures and convert CR2 to big JPG files. Then Neat Image for noise reduction and sharpen. This Workflow embeds an ICC so I took the file into PS7 and resaved it without the ICC and resent to Walmart. Same results...very dark.

Does anyone else have success with Wal-mart printing? I also sent the files to Sams Club and results were the same as Walmart. On my PC the pic looks good on the monitor (Dell LCD) and prints prefect on my Canon S9000 using Qimage.

Any suggestions?....Thanks​,
Sagebrush

The photo technicians there can make manual adjustments if you are not happy with the results.

I've found Wal-Mart less than satisfactory for my printing - at least our local store. I have however run tests at Costco with color correction on and off and got the exact same results which I took to mean the colors were OK as presented. (It could mean they don't care and only really process them one wayI) use PS7 to process my images and submit them for pickup at a local Costco warehouse.

I experience the same results as you. With my now sold Fuji S602Z, the pics on the monitor was 90% of what I was seeing on the final print at most photo finish stores. But with my 350D, the picture on my monitor always show much more details in the shadow than in the final print which seem darker. Every one on the web seem to say that Lab printers have a bigger color gamut than PC monitors, but in my experience, it seems that my finised photos lack detail in the darker parts. Some great shots I have on my computer with difficult to reproduce gradients are ugly as hell when printed in the Lab printer. But on my Canon i560 printer, I have acceptable results from a 100$CDN printer.. Strange.

Never I have seen this picture, which I took, good in lab print.

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To achieve accurate colour and brightness, I always ask the lab if they have a printer profile I can use for soft-proofing. If they know what they are doing and the technology allows for it, they are perfectly happy to oblige. Over the past 4 yrs I have only needed to ask two different labs. I am more than happy with the results, although because the ICC profile for their printer is somewhat different from the original captured image, then of course this means tweaking colour balance etc on each pic and saving it in a designated folder as 'adjusted fuji' or whatever, so that you preserve your original capture for back-up/storage.

Once you get the ICC profile you can put it in your systems colour settings folder, and then in PS go to view/proof setup/custom and choose the particular profile from there. You should then be viewing your picture as the printer will print, but don't forget to callibrate the monitor too.

I was very displeased with the quality at my local walmart & costco. I now go through Mpix.com, which has totally blown me away with their quality, selection and price.

Peace!

I'll second all of that. I'd submitted the same print to WallMart on consecutive days & got different colors each time, between +10G to +20M. The Costco output has never varied.

I get terrible results from Wal-Mart, like you, WAY too dark and it doesn't seem to matter if I check/uncheck Enhance Image or not.

"I now go through Mpix.com, which has totally blown me away with their quality, selection and price."

I'm glad to hear this Bill as I will be going through them once I receive their calibration kit.

The best was the time that they tried to charge me for wallets when I was the one that set them up that way on a 4x6...LOL Wal-mart is less than satisfactory

But, in the event that you must use them..... I have a calibration image that I have printed on their machine and then calibrate my color/contrast settings to match. But, it can still vary from time to time depending on how they are keeping the machines up

I tried that too, but they changed color balance too fast!